


(My Heart is) Always Running Out of Time

by StitchNLich (GallifreyanAtHearts)



Category: The Witcher (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Time Travel, immortal!jaskier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-06
Updated: 2020-03-06
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:21:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23040919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GallifreyanAtHearts/pseuds/StitchNLich
Summary: He lives in the Moment, he likes to think, although which Moment is never clear, or even necessarily in his control.  He doesn’t mind.  He did not choose to be in this Moment, only to no longer be in the one he had left.He is a creature of time, and he passes from Moment to Moment, out of any order that someone outside himself could understand.  Until he meets Geralt of Rivia
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 15
Kudos: 302





	(My Heart is) Always Running Out of Time

**Author's Note:**

> I fell face first into this fandom through the show, after promising myself I would not do this. This is based on the show, though I have procured the books. It's time travel angst. That's it, that's the fic. It was originally going to be a Time Traveler's Wife au, but it ended up being more TTW inspired than a direct au. Title from Always Running out of Time by Motion City Soundtrack. I'm on tumblr at koshertaako

A not-quite-man sings in a tavern. Another not-quite-man sits in the same tavern. The first knows the second one, but the opposite is not true. The second notices the first, but again the opposite is not true. All of this is about to change.

—-

Time is….tangible. He can reach out and touch it, hold it. Time is relative, a place, a thing. It is him, or he might be it. He tries not to think about it too hard. It becomes boring that way. Or painful. Or maybe those are the same thing.

He lives in the Moment, he likes to think, although which Moment is never clear, or even necessarily in his control. He doesn’t mind.

He did not choose to be in this Moment, only to no longer be in the one he had left.

He stands in a Moment. Sings in a Moment. A moment, singing a song he knows that the person he doesn’t want to think about would hate. In a Moment, in a tavern, in front of an irate group of drinkers, pelting him with foodstuff. He bends to pick up and marvel at it, at the Moment, at the experience and as he does his eyes go wide. He hears a voice, in his head, from another Moment, one he already lived.

_“The first time I saw you, you were singing a truly awful song about made-up monsters, and having bread thrown at you for your trouble”_

In that Moment Geralt had been amused as he tried to piece together a puzzle of Moments. Will be amused, thinks Jaskier as he looks up, and there sure enough, across the room is his witcher. Not his. Not yet. Not anymore. All at once.

Geralt calls him Jaskier, and now in this second as he ostensibly chooses that name for the shape of this Moment, he understands why he picks it. Something lovely, fleeting. Something that lasts a time and dies, beautiful and rotting the whole while. All at once.

Now that he’s noticed what Moment this is, Jaskier cannot look away from the brooding figure in the corner. He thinks he’s known Geralt for years, probably decades, it is hard for him to tell. Eons worth of Moments. But this Geralt doesn’t know him.

Without pulling his eyes from the hypnotizing picture of Geralt of Rivia, unaware of all that will transpire, Jaskier pulls a drink from the tray of a passing serving girl. He briefly entertains the thought of not speaking to Geralt, but chokes on the idea of it.

Even as his heart clenches and he reels in agony that Geralt has not yet caused, Jaskier cannot bear to give all of it up. He would not miss a Moment of it. And so he approaches.

—-

He sings a song he’s never written, though it is indisputably his own, only heard played back to him in his past, Geralt’s future. He’ll never write it, only play it, over and over. From this Moment, throughout time. He understands now the melancholy it has always invoked in him.

* * *

Jaskier is alone with Geralt. He’s just spent what felt to him an eternity, which is quite a feat, convincing a poor laundress to spend her evening washing selkiemore viscera from Geralt’s clothing. There was a lot of coin involved, not that Jaskier worries about coin all that often. This Moment is a soft one. The witcher bathes in silence.

Jaskier is not good at silence. This seems to be a point of contention. Less so when he has encountered Geralt older, but in this Moment, Geralt does not yet even know Jaskier’s true nature. He has known Geralt only a brief while, and the witcher still believes he is spending their shared days in what he perceives as traditionally chronological fashion. Jaskier knows that he will eventually tell him.

He does not understand why he will do this. He does adore Geralt, for now. The witcher leads an entertaining life, and Jaskier loves the thrill of following just behind it.

He swallows concerns, and a haunting memory of a Moment he can’t understand.

He is Geralt’s friend. Nothing more. Interests and entertainment flit in and out of his patterns. Once he spent a long Moment, perhaps what might have been a whole year? Entertained by the attentions of a particular Countess. She tired of him though, so he spent another Moment in her past, seducing her, using the things he had learned the first time until _he_ bored of _her_ , though he suspects he may visit again.

Jaskier wants to attend a party in this Moment, it is why he’s here, though the Moment when he received the invitation to play was one he experienced quite a while ago. The problem is that he’s unsure of those who will be in attendance he has angered, and more pressingly who he _will_ anger, in his future but their own past. It is a hazard he knows too well for his liking.

It is why he wheedles and cajoles Geralt, flirts without quite meaning it. He suspects that someday when he flirts with Geralt he will mean it, but not yet. Now he only flirts with the idea of flirting with him.

He begs of Geralt his protection. The witcher has a sense for threats, honed over many years and many, many fights.

_“You needed a favor. That’s why you told me.”_

Jaskier understands, suddenly. The only way Geralt will help him is if he knows that Jaskier cannot detect his own threats. Geralt might grumble, but he would not allow harm to come to Jaskier.

Not yet.

\---

Geralt takes it in stride. Jaskier is both relieved and suspicious, but given the new information, the witcher had acquiesced to Jaskier’s pleas. Geralt had accepted, without too many questions, and Jaskier does not quite know him well enough to know what that means.

Seeing Geralt dressed stiffly in clothing that are not his armor definitely has no effect on Jaskier. None. His breath does not catch in his throat, and he _does not_ think about that Moment when Geralt had misjudged where in time Jaskier was, and kissed him. It had been a good kiss, unexpected, as so few things in his life are, and now, looking at Geralt with an attempt at subtlety that he does not believe is successful, he understands why he will want to kiss Geralt.

Does want to kiss Geralt.

Caution is not in Jaskier’s nature, it is why he lands so often in trouble with spouses and parents. It’s hard to keep in mind the potential for consequence when he has experienced the consequences an age ago, or when they might not come to pass for another age. And yet when he looks at Geralt, and he feels desire, and maybe a flutter in his stomach that he steadfastly will not acknowledge, he also feels apprehension.

—-

He watches Geralt leave, and he feels heartache. It’s odd for him, he knows that the princess and her knight will perish. Jaskier has not paid much attention to the workings of Cintra that have not yet come to pass, but he knows that much. The knowledge that their daughter, in this Moment yet unborn, is bound to Geralt is new to him now, as it happens, even as it is for Geralt. He longs to chase after Geralt, and yet afraid of that impulse, he does not.

* * *

He has spent a long while in this Moment, several moons at least, entertained by and entertaining the Countess de Stael again. She’s easy in a way that most things in his life no longer are. Well, the way one thing no longer is, but Jaskier seems to spend an inordinate amount of time focusing on that one thing.

Geralt. Obsessing over when he will see him next, and what version of Geralt will greet him. He has taken to flitting through brief Moments to find ones in which he coincides with his dear witcher, and when a Moment lacks Geralt’s presence, Jaskier misses it sorely.

He kissed Geralt when last he saw him, startling him. This had led to a conversation though, and Jaskier understood that the words Geralt gave him, freely and without any hint of annoyance were themselves an admission of care. For the first time, Geralt has asked him questions, or even acknowledged more than briefly Jaskier’s true nature. They had not been not the sort of questions Jaskier had expected, not that Jaskier had revealed himself to others frequently enough to build expectations. He had pried from Geralt details of Moments that he had lived through that Jaskier had yet not. His witcher had answered succinctly but honestly, with only mild, good natured insult. He’s not sure when he learned to tell the difference, but he is certain. His witcher is gruff, but that is part of his charm.

Jaskier feels the urge to leave this Moment and the Countess behind him, bored and restless. He’s been drinking, thinking about his most recent lover’s harsh words of parting, and trying not to think of yellow-gold eyes, pleading in a way that their owner could not vocalize for forgiveness for something Jaskier cannot imagine. He thinks to depart, find somewhere in time where he can cross paths with Geralt, now, kiss him perhaps, maybe more.

He takes a deep drink, because he doesn’t know how this can go wrong, only that it will. He dreads it. He ignores it. He does not know how his witcher will break his heart, only that he will. His recent habit is to find Geralt in time and _cling_ , and be relieved when those Moments end, when each is not the last, and then he panics, not knowing how many he will have left. He finds himself flitting through time, often out of his control from the strain of it.

Hence, the Countess. But that’s over, and Jaskier stands in a tavern and finishes his drink, because he cannot bear another Moment parted from Geralt. He moves to leave the place, dropping a few coins on the table.

He thinks it is his own imagination gone too far when he hears whispers of a white-haired witcher spotted on the edge of town, by the lake. Jaskier’s mouth goes dry and he longs for another drink, as he listens. He’s not imagining. His heart lurches and he swallows hard. He heads for the lake.

—-

In hindsight, perhaps he should not have mentioned the Countess de Stael. What he and Geralt have, what they do, is not… Defined. They are not a couple. But it seems to irritate Geralt who is already in a state of agitation. Geralt’s mood is possibly the most foul Jaskier has ever seen him in. He should have noticed sooner how frankly awful his witcher looks in this Moment; he sobers as soon as he does. Something is chewing him up from the inside, a monster of his own thoughts, not so easily slain.

Jaskier understands more than Geralt realizes. His frustration makes him petty. Even frustrated, he knows Geralt does not mean the insults, another tone would even suggest teasing, Geralt’s metaphor meant to mimic one of his own. Jaskier does not truly intend to rob Geralt of his wishes. 

The agony in his jaw and throat make it hard to think, or perhaps that is just another facet of the djinn’s magic. Can’t make wishes if one can’t think. The only thing that penetrates is Geralt’s well hidden but absolute panic. Jaskier would find it gratifying if he was not absolutely terrified. Despite his penchant for relentless enduring, he suspects he is in fact capable of dying. Yet he knows this is not where he dies, too much of his past is unexplained for him to not have a future, but there are many worse things that ill intentioned magic can do than kill a man.

—-

Jaskier is indignant and offended by the elf’s implication that Geralt cares for the witch, which is interesting and concerning. It quickly turns into a fear more strangling than the djinn’s spell when Geralt strides back into the house, with a not insignificant side of something he cannot identify, as the witcher cites Yennefer saving Jaskier as the reason for this sudden fit of life threatening altruism.

He thinks about the way Geralt grabbed at him as he fell when initially cursed by the djinn, at the way Geralt had panicked in his own way, a way that perhaps only Jaskier picked up on, though he suspects the witch might have as well, and that annoys him. He feels dangerously close to tears. Jaskier stands next to Chireadan, and together they watch the top of the house crumble. Jaskier’s heart seizes. He knows this is not where Geralt dies. He knows it. It can’t be.

Geralt can’t be dead, he has a future with Jaskier. He does, Jaskier knows it, has experienced it. And yet there is no way for anyone, even a witcher, his witcher, to have survived the collapse. Jaskier cannot block the mental image of Geralt’s crumpled body, crushed by stone and wooden beams. He feels sick. He wants to run in and _dig_ , scrape with his bare hands at the rubble that is the upper floors of the house until he finds Geralt, but he can’t move his legs. He can’t breathe all over again. This is his fault.

\---

His heart feels like it is being squeezed in a vise, and once again, his chest feels tight. The relief he had felt upon finding Geralt alive had been all encompassing and a feeling like the end of the world had been kept at bay. Now though, as his thinks about what he saw, breathing is once again difficult. He and Geralt are not a couple. He regrets mentioning the Countess all the more, even regrets going back to the Countess in the first place, if this is how it feels to know his witcher is with someone else.

He feels possessive, which is new, and concerning, and he wants to cling to Geralt’s side, even while repulsed by the idea. If this is how he feels now, how can it get worse, he wonders.

* * *

It occurs to Jaskier at some point throughout this mountaintop ordeal, that Geralt is never going to choose him over the witch. He’s not sure when the realization hits, but it feels like he’s going to vomit up his own heart. Geralt ignores him when Yennefer is near, and he likes to think that it’s okay. His witcher always returns to him at the end of these sad episodes. It’s funny, Jaskier never thought to be someone’s constant. It’s only right, he supposes, knowing that it is equally unfair that he trips and prances his way through Geralt’s life, in and out, in what his witcher must perceive as no particular order. It makes him uncomfortable to think about. He’s never cared for one person so long that it mattered.

And so they come back to each other. But sometimes it feels that when Geralt comes back to him, less and less comes back each time. Jaskier can no longer distinguish between his teasing, and what Jaskier suspects might be actual insults, or they feel like they are at least. Something still chips away at his witcher from within. Jaskier no longer fears the inevitable, is only resigned to it, and he has spent long Moments at Geralt’s side, wishing they would never end, but they always do.

\---

He thinks something _broke_ in Geralt when Borch fell. Or maybe it broke a long time ago. His witcher is quiet, which is not unusual, but something is different in a way Jaskier can’t explain. He offers comfort in the only way he knows how, companionship and conversation. Geralt is not gruff with him, which only concerns him further.

He knows Geralt will never accept his proposal. They both know it is not about the coast, or location at all. They both understand what Jaskier is asking. _Stay with me, choose me. And I will stay here and choose you._ It is not in either of their natures. It is not in either nature to need or want constancy, to need each other. And yet Jaskier does, want and need. He does not know how to reconcile this with the base truths of himself. Geralt, his witcher, has changed something so fundamental in him. Maybe something in himself is broken.

Something in himself resents not having had the same effect on Geralt.

\---

Being left behind should no longer have this effect on him, yet here he is. Alone, in the dirt on the top of a forsaken mountain peak, with his lute and not much else. His heart twists. He doesn’t understand what he’s done to deserve this, beyond the simple fact of his existing while not being Yennefer. He is not sure how much more of this he can take.

Maybe he should just leave this Moment, and the next and the next, run face first into the heartbreak he’s resigned himself to rather than avoid it. He’s already living it maybe, the sustained, wrenching ache in his chest that leaves him winded. Maybe he wants this to be over, already.

But he follows after the way he thinks Geralt went anyway.

—-

Something breaks in Jaskier, or maybe it broke a long time ago. He’s been waiting for, dreading, living in terror of this Moment for so long he can’t quite believe it’s here. He can’t breathe, can’t quite put coherent thoughts together, can hardly stand.

For all the time he spent obsessing about this Moment, no matter how bad he imagined it could be, how much he could hurt, it is worse than he could have ever dreamed up in his worst nightmares, a thousandfold.

He doesn’t want to be in this Moment anymore, wants to be literally any-when else. And so he is.

* * *

A not-quite-man sings in a tavern. Another not-quite-man sits in the same tavern. Everything is about to change. Nothing is going to change. All at once.

—-

The music thing has been a fancy, as most things are in his life. The coins are shiny, the lyrics are rowdy, the men and women are pretty. An entertaining Moment, for certain. He bows to perhaps more applause than he thinks he deserves. Someone shouts a request for a song he’s a heard but a few times, scattered throughout time, and so with a wink and smirk he tells the heckler to start it off for him. This causes a round of swooning, and covers his hesitance. He catches on quickly enough, he has heard it after all, and something about the song resonates with him in an odd way, almost pride, almost melancholy. The song declares the heroics of a witcher. He’s never met one before, though it might be interesting. He ends his evening on that song, and his audience is satisfied.

Despite his newly overflowing coin purse, his drink is free. He flirts voraciously with the girl who brings it to him, and she blushes sweetly, but glances over his shoulder nervously and rushes off. He frowns at this reaction. He feels eyes on him, and he whips his head around to see what had scared off the lovely serving girl. He thinks he may be about to meet a witcher. White hair, two swords, medallion, and eyes a captivating shade somewhere between yellow and gold, boring into him intensely. Definitely a witcher, and possibly, looking at his hair, even the one referenced by the “White Wolf” moniker in the song.

The sight of the witcher takes his breath away. He’s _gorgeous_ in an unrestrained, inexplicable sort of way, but he barely registers it. He is captivated by the man’s eyes, and how the man looks at him, like one might look at the shattered shards of a priceless treasure, broken. The intensity of that stare makes him uncomfortable. 

“May I sit?” The witcher asks, and he can only nod mutely, and he watches as the man maneuvers to sit across from him, his stare never relenting.

“Jaskier,” the witcher starts, but then falters. He panics, this person knows him, has a name for him. His mouth opens and then shuts and then opens again, but no sound comes out. “Jaskier, I’ve...” the witcher tries again to speak, but something seems to be choking him. He plows on though. “I’ve been searching for you. What I said, what I did…” He takes a deep breath, and there is a pause.

He should be doing better at this. He is an expert at smoothing over gaps, glibly glossing over things others think he should know. Something about this man’s intensity overwhelms him, his mind, and he can do little more than stare as the man speaks.

“What I said to you was unforgivable, and while I didn’t mean it, that doesn’t change that I said it, and I hurt you. I am….Hm. I am deeply, unbearably sorry. You don’t need to forgive me, I only wanted you to know.” The witcher’s gaze never breaks, even as he stands and begins to walk away. He is frozen. His mind and heart race, he doesn’t understand.

And then he moves so quickly, the bench topples as he stands and bounds after the witcher, who is already out of the doors of the tavern. He cannot even call out before the man turns around, and he sees the flicker of an unbearable hope on the witcher’s face before he arranges himself into stoicism.

“Jaskier?” The witcher asks, and there is that _name_ again.

“I…” He has no words, he doesn’t know what the point of this was. “I don’t…” He averts his gaze from the witcher, still boring holes into his soul with those intense eyes that he can read disturbingly well, and seem to read him just as precisely in return.

“Fuck.” The witcher says, as if this explains everything. His face briefly registers shock. The witcher steps back, away from him. “You don’t know me yet.” This man knows his true nature. He panics.

“I’m so sorry.” He says, and he bolts from the man’s horrified stare. He doesn’t pay attention to where he’s going. 

And then the Moment is over. He is at a party, someone calls out the name that the silver haired man had used. He composes himself. This is what he does. He smiles and lives in the Moment.

* * *

He has visited the good times. How could he not. He has allowed Geralt to kiss him, fuck him. Allowed Geralt to speak to him, touch him, treat him with care and the peculiar kindness that is the hallmark of their...Companionship. It isn’t sustainable.

His heart ached in those Moments. It’s unspeakably strange, now that he has the whole story, all together to create understanding. It’s strange, having had so long to consider the witcher’s apology, agonize over every word, think about what could preempt it, but never having stopped to wonder if would forgive Geralt. He still hasn’t. It’s something he avoids thinking about. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t want to. He wants to. He wants things to change. He wants that apology, in hindsight must have been thought about for so long, each word carefully chosen, as all of the witcher’s words are, to be accompanied by change, by Geralt showing through actions, that he means to treat him better.

He has been afraid to know whether or not that will be the case. But now he is here, in the Moment he’s been avoiding.

A not-quite-man sits in a tavern, with his face in his hands. Another not-quite-man enters through doors he had only walked out of brief seconds ago, and also an eternity ago, all at once.

Geralt looks up when Jaskier sits down across from him at the table in the shadowed corner. The witcher inclines his head, and Jaskier nods.

“I’d hoped I’d find you here.” He says.

“Jaskier, I…” Geralt starts but with a sad half smile on his face, Jaskier shakes his head to silence him.

“I remember that part, Geralt.” The witcher rubs his face in his hands again.

“Fuck. The whole time, all these years…” Jaskier nods. “Hm.”

He can hear mortification, heartbreak, and confusion, all in that small sound. He takes a deep breath and he sighs. He reaches across the table to softly wrap his fingers around the witcher’s left wrist and pull his hand away from his face. Geralt allows it, looks at Jaskier, his one visible eye staring just as intensely as that first moment that Jaskier saw him.

“I’ve had a lot of time to think about this, Geralt.” He says slowly, seriously, and the witcher hangs on every word. It’s gratifying. “I cannot keep going as we were.” Before he can continue, Geralt is already standing, and nodding.

“I understand. I won’t trouble you further.” Geralt starts to walk away, avoiding Jaskier’s gaze. Jaskier grabs his wrist again.

“Oh sit and listen, would you?” Jaskier says, not able to bring himself to be truly annoyed, because he knows Geralt is only trying to respect what he thinks Jaskier wishes. “Have you ever known me to be that succinct?” The joke brings a hint of a smile to the corner of Geralt’s lips. The witcher returns to his seat, watching him intently, head tilted just slightly, a sure sign of his attention.

“I cannot continue as we were.” He repeats. “But I want us to continue.” He hears the witcher inhale sharply. “Choose me, Geralt, and I will choose you. I will follow you, heart first, through your adventures, and through time, if you would have me, but I cannot play second fiddle. It is not in my nature, and it is not what I deserve.” He stops, and he nods to Geralt to signal that he has said his whole piece.

Geralt nods again, and stands again, but this time he holds a hand out to Jaskier. He takes it, and allows the witcher to guide him gently to his feet. Geralt strokes across his cheekbone with the back of his hand. His breathing shakes as Geralt leans down to press his forehead to his.

“You have changed me in ways I cannot quite explain, bard. I was too foolish to realize it.” He feels Geralt's breath warm on his face as he speaks, quietly, only for Jaskier to hear.

“Is that a yes?” He asks, his voice breathy and similarly quiet.

“Hm.”

Jaskier barely manages to smile before his witcher’s lips are on his.

**Author's Note:**

> In case anyone is confused about orders of events, I have posted the dual chronologies on my tumblr: https://koshertaako.tumblr.com/post/616436340017479680/my-heart-is-always-running-out-of-time


End file.
